Friday, November 09, 2007

Hillary's rough patch

Her ordeal began with an insipid question in an insipid “debate” about an insipid program: The granting of driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.

Ill-prepared, instead of just saying no way, Jose, Mrs. Clinton gave a long answer that someone smarter than me compared to Miss Teen USA-South Carolina’s answer to a question.

She later clarified herself by supporting the idea. Then she looked up, like a schoolgirl seeing if her answer pleased the schoolteacher.

It did not.

So she changed it.

Enter Bill Clinton, her husband and a more experienced campaigner to defuse the situation. Everyone is picking on her because she is a woman, he said. Then he looked up — less wide-eyed — to see if the teacher was buying that.

Nope.

It was a remarkably dated answer. Sure, the attack on the Good Ol Boys Club might have worked if she were running for governor of some minor state in the 1980s.

But this is the big leagues. This is the 21st century. America expects fresher manure from its pols.

Barack Obama ate their lunch with this remark to Fox News: “Senator Clinton and others have been fighting some of the same fights since the ’60s. It makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done. And I think that’s what people hunger for.”

DISCLOSURES: I am long 2008DEM.NOM.CLINTON, 2008DEM.NOM.OBAMA, and I am short 2008.PRES.CLINTON.